Young Match Officials (YMOs) at Society Training25 January 2017 at 11:08

On Tuesday 24th January, 12 YMOs attended the first Society Training Evening of 2017, held as usual at the Saracens Head in Southwell. The addition of these young people ensured we had a full house on the night, where Society Training Officer Bill Burton facilitated an enjoyable interactive session on "Communications and Management".

The YMOs arrived in advance of the meeting to meet members of the NLDRFURS Committee and two of our senior referees (Tim Allatt and Andy Smith). Tim and Andy described their refereeing journey, in particular their early days of refereeing for their Society. Several of the YMOs described their early refereeing experiences with enthusiasm and a short question and answer session resulted in tips and advice being exchanged on the art of refereeing.

Throughout the meeting with the YMOs, two media students from the University of Lincoln filmed the session as part of a project to document the "YMO Journey" for the RFU.

The YMOs then joined the main Training Event: after a short Society Admin session three of them (Maddy Crofts, Aiden Baker-Johal and Sam Yates) were presented with their special YMO Programme Shirts by Paul Carroll. These shirts incorporate a special YMO Logo, the RFU Rose and are coloured orange with a purple inset. All three of these YMOs are now Society members, which is great news.

Thereafter the YMOs participated fully in the Society Training Evening before leaving at 9pm.

Congratulations to all involved in setting up and ensuring that the evening went so well for our Young Officials, in particular Nicola McCombe (Lincs CRC), Nicole Brown (NLD Office), John Widdowson (RFU MODO) and the referees who helped on the night.